


Mea Culpa

by Farasha



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Angst, Blasphemy, Canonical Character Death, Confessional, Corporal Punishment, Explicit Consent, Grief/Mourning, Impact Play, M/M, No Safeword, Roman Catholicism, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:22:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4864646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farasha/pseuds/Farasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tig has some guilt he needs to work through, so he turns to the resident expert on guilt - the Catholic.</p><p>Post-episode coda to 5x04.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mea Culpa

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for any inconsistencies in Chibs' accent. I started out typing it phonetically, found that it made the text unreadable, dialed it back so much that I felt like I lost it, and ended up trying to split the difference.

They buried Opie beside Donna. As the coffin vanished beneath the earth, Lyla took the kids home, white-faced and thin-lipped. They should have sent someone with her, but the club was left standing in the graveyard as the gravediggers shoveled dirt on the coffin, silent as tombstones themselves. Chibs watched them fill in the grave with a hollow ache in his chest, a rosary clutched tightly in his hands, and his voice lodged in his throat. Despite that he couldn't bring himself to speak prayer, the club bowed their heads in silence, waiting. Jax strode away first, jaw tight and eyes burning, and Chibs turned to follow at his president's right hand.

The reaper on the back of Jax's cut grinned at Chibs as they finally rode away from the cemetery. Jax pulled out in front and kept going, laying on speed, and Chibs let him go, leading the rest of the club back to Teller-Morrow. Jax's bike was already there when they rolled in, and the doors of the chapel were shut tight, blinds drawn.

Chibs watched the leather doors with a bottle of whiskey dangling from one fist, a cigarette burning down to its filter hanging out of the corner of his mouth. It had been at least an hour since they all got back, but the rest of the guys were toasting and pouring one out - and Chibs wasn't ready to do that yet. He knew why Jax had locked himself in the chapel, and it was the same reason he'd pulled up a barstool beside the pool table, separating himself from the noise of the others.

Bobby shuffled up beside him, breaking his solitude. "Think he'll be okay?"

Chibs ground his cigarette out under the heel of his boot. Fuck whatever Gemma would say about ash on the floor. The whiskey burned its way down his throat, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his glove. "Jax needs time."

"You should talk to him." Bobby's voice was gruff with drink and grief, and Chibs glanced at him to find Bobby's hands planted deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched over and his shaggy hair wild around his face. "You were there. You're his right hand. He'll shut himself away if we let him - we can't let him."

The Sergeant at Arms flash on the right side of Chibs' cut seemed to burn through the leather. He wanted another cigarette. He wanted to drink until he couldn't sit up, much less carry on conversations with Bobby about their president's state of mind. He wanted, not for the first time, to hand the flash he wore back to the man who'd been wearing it much longer than he had.

Instead, he shoved the door to the chapel open with his shoulder, leading his way in with the bottle in his hand. Jax looked up at him. He didn't move from the head of the table and he didn't say to leave, so Chibs closed the door behind him and settled into his own chair. He wordlessly offered Jax the bottle he carried, and Jax took it, pulling a long swallow from it before handing it back.

Jax scrubbed his hand over his beard, his mouth twisted and his eyes bright. "I miss him."

Chibs knocked another cigarette out of the pack and lit it, breathing in deep. "Aye," he said. The smoke from his exhale and from Jax's cigarette, burning down between his fingers, hung in the air between them. "Too many brothers in the ground, Jackie."

Jax planted his elbows on the table and folded his hands, resting his forehead on his knuckles, rings digging sharp lines in his forehead. "This is just - fuck, Chibs, this whole fucking _mess._ "

Chibs leaned in to wrap his free hand around the back of Jax's neck, the cigarette burning in the other. "I know it," he said, trying for soothing and only managing hoarse. "I miss him, too." He'd seen those boys born, Jax and Opie both. He'd watched them grow up cocky and dangerous, challenging the world and everything in it, always at each other's side. To see Jax so alone like this - it made him look small, like a kid with the Prospect patch on the back of his cut all over again.

"I'm gonna need you, Chibs." That voice ruined the illusion - tired and older than Jax had any right to sound. "You'll have my back?"

"Always, Jackie boy." Chibs squeezed the grip he had on Jax's neck, a pang in his chest at how lost his boy was, how deeply Opie's death had wounded him. "We're all right here."

"I need you to do something for me," Jax said, holding his hand out for the bottle. Chibs let go of him and pressed it into his palm. Jax stared at the neck of it for a moment before taking another long pull. "Tig."

"Aye, what about him?"

"His head's not right." There was a line between Jax's eyebrows as he stared down at the reaper carved into the table. "First Dawn, now Ope? He was there for both of those, and it's twisting him up. I need you to get him right. Whatever he needs."

Chibs was once again too aware of his patch. He leaned back, hand sliding into his pocket, cheeks hollowing around the cigarette as he took a drag. Something smooth brushed against his fingers, then a square edge - beads, the cross. His rosary felt heavy in his fingers. "He watched his daughter burn alive in front of him. Tig needs to put Damon Pope in the ground before he'll be right."

Jax's eyes went bright and cold like foxfire, his jaw tightening and his fingers curling around the edge of the reaper's outline. "I want to give that to him. For him, for me - for Opie and Dawn." Chibs watched the muscle of his jaw tic, watched his chest heave and his fingers whiten on the carving - then, just as quickly as the rage had come, it drained back out, leaving only that flat exhaustion behind. "I just don't know if I can. It's complicated." Jax put the cigarette to his lips and inhaled, burning it down to the filter before stubbing it out in the ashtray.

"It's asking him to shake hands with the monster that murdered his child," Chibs rubbed his thumb along the rosary's beads in his pocket. It was new, still had some seams where the lathe hadn't worn them down - not like the one that lay in Opie's grave, finger-smooth and heavy with penance. "I don't know if a man can stay whole with that."

Jax grabbed the bottle back from him and drank, finally loosening his grip on the table carving. "I need him. I need all of you."

Chibs exhaled, blowing out smoke. "I'll do what I can, Jax."

"That's all I ask, man," Jax said, dropping one heavy hand on Chibs' shoulder and squeezed. "Thanks for coming in. I just need some time to myself, you know?"

Chibs did know. Jax had to be there for everyone else, and he was willing to bet the boy hadn't been able to properly say goodbye, not with all the eyes of the club on him. "Aye, I'll leave you alone. Just remember we're out there - don't wall off from us."

"I won't," Jax said. He offered Chibs the bottle of whiskey, but Chibs raised his hands, shaking his head, and backed out of the door, closing it behind him.

All eyes were on him when he looked up, a hush falling over the rest of the club. His mouth tightened and he crossed to the bar, reaching down behind it to grab another bottle. "He'll be fine. Leave him be."

"Thanks," Bobby said, clapping him on the back. Chibs shrugged his hand away. He didn't want to be thanked. Seeing Jax like that was like swallowing shards of glass, gouging his throat the whole way down. 

He sucked on his cigarette with a vengeance, then stubbed it out. "Where's Tig?"

Bobby's face stilled, and he jerked his head toward the other end of the bar. Tig was curled up in the corner, on the floor, his back to the wall and a bottle in his hand to match the one Chibs held. "Hasn't moved from there since we all came in."

"Christ." Chibs blew smoke out his nose. "Keep the rest of 'em from drinkin' themselves to death, aye?"

"You got it, brother," Bobby said, and stepped out of Chibs' way to let him approach the corner where Tig had holed up like a wounded animal.

Chibs looked down at Tig's bowed head. The riot of dark curls was heavy with sweat. His fingers were grimy with oil and smudged nearly black - Chibs was willing to bet Tig hadn't showered since they got out. He'd been in the bottom of a bottle at least that long.

Tig finally looked up at him, his gaze bleary and unfocused. "Hey."

"Hey." Chibs sank down into a crouch, clinking his bottle against Tig's. "To Ope."

"To Ope," Tig said, tipping his head back until his head thumped against the wall as he drank. He coughed, liquid dribbling down his chin into his beard, and Chibs sighed.

"Think you've had enough, aye brother?"

"Nah," Tig said, drinking again. "I'm still awake."

"C'mon," Chibs said, wrapping a hand around Tig's elbow, only to have the man wrench out of his grip, sliding sideways down the wall.

"Just leave it, man," Tig said. "L'me drink in peace."

"You shouldn't be alone. C'mon." Chibs gripped his arm harder this time, setting down his own bottle to haul Tig to his feet. Tig stumbled, one hand twisted in the leather of Chibs' cut and the other hanging onto the liquor like it was a lifeline. Chibs pried Tig's fingers loose and shrugged the arm over his shoulders, grabbing the back of Tig's belt and hitching him back up on his feet.

"Y'gonna put me to bed?" Tig asked, his free hand fumbling at Chibs' shoulder, fingers closing around his cut again. Chibs dragged him across the bar, ignoring the way Bobby shook his head and the way the others carefully didn't look at Tig's half-staggering progress. It was early, yet. The only way Tig could've gotten like this is if he was lit up before they even rode out to the graveyard, and that meant he'd been riding in formation with them without being steady on his bike.

"Aye, I think that's where you belong." They staggered down the hallway to the apartment, nearly knocking into JT's bike before Chibs corrected their course. Tig could barely keep himself up, his breath hot across Chibs' neck, the bottle making hollow thunks off the wood as it bounced with Tig's meandering progress.

Chibs meant to pour him into bed, watch until Tig fell asleep and be there to stop him from picking up the bottle again as soon as he woke up in the morning. Tig had other ideas, his hand still tangled in the shoulder of Chibs' cut as he slid down to the floor in front of the bed, half-pulling Chibs down after him.

"Christ, Tig. Get up, you cannae sleep on the floor."

"Fuck you, Telford." Tig swung suddenly, and Chibs leaned back just in time for the bottle to whistle past his jaw. He caught Tig's wrist in a vise grip, prying the liquor away from him. "Fuck! Why can't you just leave it alone?"

Chibs shoved Tig's hand back at him, slamming the bottle down on the dresser. "I'll nae watch you drink yourself to death and have to bury someone else."

"You should!" Tig scrambled to his feet, lunging at Chibs, a clumsy swing that Chibs easily knocked to the side, shoving Tig back with both hands. "Yeah, fuckin' hit me," Tig hissed, teeth bared in a feral rictus of his usual grin, fists balled at his sides and swaying on his feet.

Chibs let his back hit the wall with a thump, eyeing Tig with his hair falling in his eyes and his chest feeling hollow. "I cannae lay hands on you like this, Tigger. If you still want a beating when you're sober, we'll talk."

Tig's eyes glinted, sharper than they'd looked in days. "You backing down on me?"

"Wouldn't be a fair fight and you know it," Chibs said, staring him down.

Tig broke eye contact first, rubbing his hand over his face and then dragging it through his hair. "It should've been me in the box. Jax is never gonna forgive me for it."

Chibs clicked his tongue, a scolding sound, and got a good grip on Tig under his arms before the man sagged like the will to stay upright had left him. Chibs managed to half-drag, half-roll him into bed. Tig lay sprawled on his belly, his head turned to one side as he stared off into nothing, the exhaustion in his eyes eerily close to what Chibs had seen in Jax. Losing Opie had taken the heart out of the whole club, but Chibs had a feeling this had been in Tig for longer than that. Since Dawn - or maybe even since Clay, before Tig found out about Piney and all the betrayal. Maybe that was wearing on him, too - Chibs didn't remember a time when the club had been so broken. Hearing Tig talk like this, blaming himself for it, was almost worse than seeing Jax lost to grief.

Tig's eyes slid shut as Chibs watched, though his face didn't lose any of its pinched lines as his breathing deepened into sleep. Chibs dragged a chair over to the bedside, propped his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands, his shoulders tight. After a long, silent moment listening to Tig's breathing, he stripped off his gloves and pulled the rosary from his pocket, smoothing his thumb over the beads, holding it in his clasped hands with his head bowed. 

It had been a long, long time since he prayed with any sincerity, and the words stuck in his throat. He ran his thumb across the string of beads in the dark quiet of the apartment, Tig shifting restlessly in his sleep, until he finally dozed off without saying anything at all.

Light was shining through the cracks of the curtains when he next opened his eyes, and he had a stiffness in his neck born of sleeping in a bad position. He was slumped over on the bed, half-in and half-out of the chair, his rosary still clutched tight in one hand. He sat up with a small groan, rubbing at his aching shoulder.

Tig wasn't in the bed, and from the bathroom came the sound of someone being violently sick. The inside of Chibs' mouth tasted like something had crawled into the back of it and died. He pushed himself to his feet and staggered to the bathroom, kicking the door open.

It bounced off Tig's hip and Tig groaned, flipping him the bird as he continued to dry heave. Chibs rinsed his mouth out in the sink, the rosary clattering against the porcelain. He looped it around his wrist - he didn't know why he didn't just put it back in his pocket, but something about having it near felt comforting. He splashed more water over his hair and the back of his neck, the cold serving to chase away the fog of sleep and hangover. It did nothing to cut through the pall of grief that still hung over the clubhouse.

Tig was done by the time he finished, leaning on his folded arms with his face still in the toilet, his hair and the back of his neck soaked with sweat. Chibs stared down at him, a profound exhaustion settling back onto his shoulders, and grabbed him by the back of his cut. "Up you get, Tigger. Let's get the sick off."

It was a job and a half getting Tig upright. Chibs had to balance him against his shoulder while he got the shower running, Tig's arms looped around his waist and his head lolling against Chibs' shoulder, still looking half-drunk and certainly not awake enough to make words. At some point in the middle of the night he'd kicked off his boots, which made it easier to wrestle off his pants and his cut before propelling him into the lukewarm water in nothing but his shirt and boxers.

Tig made a sound like someone was flaying him alive when the water hit his back, his forehead resting against the shower tiles. His shirt was plastered to him in seconds, the ink from his tattoos showing stark through the white. They'd both gone soft around the middle with age, but they hadn't let themselves go - Tig especially, the muscles in his arms filling out the sleeves of his shirt, flexed as he leaned against the shower wall. Chibs took the time to look him over, gaze tracking down his body, cataloguing the little cuts, scrapes and bruises they all picked up on a daily basis.

After a few minutes just standing there blinking the water out of his eyes, Tig finally moved to push himself upright and strip out of his shirt. He glanced sideways at Chibs, caught him looking, and tried for a smirk that fell off his face as quickly as it came. "You trying to get an eyeful?"

Chibs leaned against the wall and fished his pack from his pocket, lighting up. "Nothing I haven't seen before."

"Nothing you haven't had in your mouth before, either," Tig shot back, peeling his wet boxers down his legs and kicking them into one corner of the shower. 

Chibs snorted, refusing to rise to the bait - even if it was true, and he couldn't keep himself from looking purely for appreciation's sake. The image of Tig naked was ruined by the dark circles under his eyes and the pale, sallow tinge to his skin. "You look like you haven't slept in days, brother."

Tig grunted, running his fingers through his hair. He still had his rings on, but Chibs didn't think he had the presence of mind to take them off. He stood with his face turned into the spray and his eyes closed. He opened his mouth and caught water in it like a dog playing with a hose, then spat the mouthful on the shower floor. "Haven't felt like sleeping."

"Felt like drinking instead?" Chibs caught the edge to his own voice and took a long drag from his cigarette, trying to blunt it before he spoke again. Jax was right - Tig's head wasn't straight. "Were you drunk at the cemetery yesterday?"

Tig leaned his arm on the shower wall and looked at Chibs sideways through the wet curls plastered across his face. "Kinda."

"Jesus wept, Tig."

"Fuck you. I got there, I got back, nothing happened."

"I should knock you around," Chibs grumbled, blowing out smoke. It mingled with the shower steam and floated around the ceiling like a curling fog.

"Yeah, you probably should." Tig twisted the water off, still leaning against the wall. "You remember what you said last night?"

Chibs handed him a towel. "Which part?"

"The part about it not being a fair fight."

Chibs could see this conversation going in a few different directions, and he wasn't sure which of them was most alarming. "I remember."

Tig toweled his hair dry, scrubbed the towel across his face, and wrapped it around his waist before turning to face Chibs. He gestured at the cigarette burning between Chibs' fingers and Chibs handed him the pack, watching as he knocked out and lit his own. Tig took a long drag and leaned back against the shower wall. Chibs waited expectantly - Tig wouldn't have brought it up if he didn't have something to say about it.

"What if I don't want a fair fight?"

That eliminated a couple of the more likely ways this could have gone and sent it straight into territory Chibs didn't want to approach with a ten foot pole. "What are you saying? You want me to hit you?"

Tig's eyes traveled over Chibs' cut to the flash over his right breast. He gestured vaguely with the lit end of his cigarette. "All the things I've done? I've been fucking it up so long, and nobody seems to give a shit. You _should_ knock me around for riding out with you guys while I'm lit up. Someone should've knocked me around for a lot of the shit I pulled lately."

"Nobody blames you-"

"Yeah they do." Tig pushed off the shower wall violently, jamming the cigarette in his mouth, and shoved Chibs aside to grab his pants and his cut, leaving his soaked shirt in a wadded-up pile in one corner of the shower as he left the bathroom. "Don't you fucking baby me, Chibs. It should've been me in the ground yesterday and we both know it."

Chibs caught him by the shoulder and spun him around, giving him a little shove. Tig should've come back swinging at him, but instead he just backed up with the shove, staggering a little, his head bowed. Chibs tossed his cigarette in the sink and shoved him again. "Don't talk like that, aye? You trying to piss me off on purpose?"

Tig shrugged one shoulder. "I fucked up, I have to pay for it somehow. You're the only one out of all of us with any kind of religion. I figured out of anyone, you'd get it."

Chibs was acutely aware of the rosary looped around his wrist. He closed his fingers over the crucifix, running his thumb across the back of it. "I'm nae a priest - and if I were, I wouldn't lay hands on you in any case."

"You're the closest thing we've got." The flat exhaustion was back in Tig's eyes, lines creasing his face. "I want you to do your fucking job."

"You think my job is to beat on you until you feel better?"

"I think your job is to keep members in line and punish mistakes, and you know it."

"So this is punishment now?"

Tig made a frustrated sound, and for a second Chibs thought he might hurl his lit cigarette across the room. "You're Catholic, or you were. I think you'd be pretty familiar with the concept of punishment for sin."

"Kinky," Chibs said before he could stop himself - because this was Tig, and that probably _was_ part of it on some level. Chibs had very vivid memories of the two of them in county, Tig folding down to his knees and letting Chibs have his way - Chibs pushed the memories aside before they started to make his blood run hot.

Tig huffed a humorless laugh that came with a cloud of smoke. "Yeah. If you want to see it that way."

The rosary felt too heavy in his hand, and Tig was staring right at it like it held all the secrets of the world. "Is that what you're asking me for?"

"I'm asking you to take your belt to me," Tig said in a rush, stubbing out his cigarette in the nearest ashtray. He scrubbed his hand over his mouth like he couldn't believe he'd said it out loud, then steeled himself visibly, straightening his shoulders and raising his head to make eye contact again, staring Chibs down.

Chibs had half a mind to walk out and hope Tig never brought this up again. He might wear the patch, but the duties of the Sergeant at Arms did not include indulging anyone's masochistic tendencies. "You've a warped view of Catholics, brother."

"Look who I had to learn from."

"Aye, suppose that's true enough." Chibs watched Tig for a minute, taking in the way he looked like he might shake apart at the slightest provocation, his hands fisted by his sides and his jaw tight. It wasn't as if Chibs didn't know how something like this worked; he'd put marks on willing partners in the past, when they asked him to, but there was a world of difference between taking a girl over his knee and laying into someone for their sins.

Not for the first time that morning, Jax's words echoed in the back of Chibs' mind. His duty _was_ to do as his president ordered, and he'd been told to set Tig's head straight - but beyond that, his brother needed him. None of them liked being vulnerable, and Tig liked it even less than most. For him to even ask for this meant that it had been festering under his skin, and Chibs found he couldn't ignore that need.

"It's nae about the punishment, Tig," he said, but as Tig took a breath to argue with him, he unbuckled his belt and pulled it from the loops with a muffled snap from the worn leather. "It's about absolution."

Tig's eyes were fixed on the belt his hands now, his tongue coming out to wet his lips. "I don't think there's any absolution for me," he said hoarsely.

"Knees," Chibs said, pointing at the foot of the bed. Tig hesitated, and Chibs raised his eyebrows. "Change your mind already?"

"Nah," Tig said, his throat bobbing in a swallow. He turned his back on Chibs and folded down to his knees, propping his hands on the bed, the muscles in his back tense and standing out sharply. "Just surprised you're actually going to do it."

Chibs had a very strong feeling he wouldn't have done this if any of them were in their right heads, but losing Ope had turned them all so badly around that he was seriously standing here ready to put stripes on Tig's back for shit nobody but Tig blamed him for.

Then there was the sight of it. It had been a long time since he'd seen Tig on his knees, and never like this. They'd done time together when they were younger, and in the pen it was safer to be fucking each other than anyone else, but that was inside. They'd never touched each other like that on the outside - and this was something else entirely.

"So how do we start this - 'Forgive me father, for I have sinned?'" Tig's voice was forcibly light, and he didn't turn his head to look back - which Chibs figured was a good thing, because those words hit at a very tangled, very repressed snarl of emotion, no small part of which was lust.

"Don't say that," he said, swallowing when his voice came out thick and raspy.

Tig threw him a smirk over his shoulder. "Did I hit a kink, Chibby?"

"Enough," Chibs said sharply, not missing the way the reproach in his voice made Tig drop his head back down. He paced, his boots heavy on the floor, rolling his shoulder to ease the ache out of it and testing the range of his swing. The hiss of leather through the air made Tig's knuckles whiten on the blankets, and sent a pulse of heat down Chibs' spine. He pushed it away. This wasn't about him and whatever warped way he got off on the blasphemy of it all. "This is about you - your confession, your penance. If you want this, you tell me what the stripes are for."

"I fucked up a hit for my president." It came out hoarse, like Tig was forcing the words out. "Do it."

Chibs tightened his grip on the belt, the beads of his rosary digging into his palm, and took a deep breath in through his nose, staring down at Tig's naked back. He had been right, and this was more than Opie - this was everything Tig had been locking inside himself while the club teetered on the edge of disaster. Tig shifted, restless, and started to look back over his shoulder - Chibs swung, sure he couldn't bear to look the man in the eyes and see all that self-loathing on the surface.

A line of red bloomed across Tig's skin. Tig hissed through his teeth, but he didn't flinch, riding out the stroke like it was nothing. "I shot Donna because I was too much of a fucking coward to look at Ope while I shot him." This was more ragged than the last, Tig's shoulders quivering and his ribs expanding with rapid breaths. "Then I lied to Ope about it."

Chibs brought the belt down once and again, harder this time, in strokes he knew would bruise later. If he was honest with himself, he was still angry about Donna - angry at Clay for ordering the hit on Opie without taking it to the table, angrier at Tig for not verifying his target before he pulled the trigger. He took a long, deep breath through his nose while he waited for Tig to speak again, forcing that anger down and locking it away. This wasn't the time for that - not when Tig was so vulnerable. Tig probably wouldn't care if Chibs beat him bloody at this point, and it was up to Chibs to make sure this stopped before it got there.

"I almost fucked Gemma behind Clay's back." Tig's hands curled into fists, bracing himself for the blow. This one was a surprise, something Tig must not have told anyone, must have been carrying with him for some time.

Chibs' chest was tight when he let this blow fall, watching it draw another angry red line across Tig's back. Who knows how long that had been shoved down deep, pushed away so Tig could function the way the club needed him to? How long had it been since Tig had talked to anyone about any of this? And now, the only way he could bring himself to do it was while he was taking a beating for it.

"I let Tara get taken when I was supposed to be protecting her."

That had been while the club was in Belfast - this was months of baggage, and Chibs felt something sour twist in his gut. Someone should have been there for their brother. They shouldn't have let it get this bad.

The crack of leather across Tig's skin made tension unwind from his back, his head drooping between his arms, giving himself up to let Chibs work him over. And that - the sight of that was dangerous, making Chibs' mouth go dry. He clenched the fist of his free hand and pushed the desire away. It was too distracting, and he couldn't be setting Tig's head straight if he let himself get tangled up in his own lust.

"I killed an innocent girl because of a fucking lie, brought her father down on us."

Chibs let the stroke fly, fixated on the red stripe he produced, the way the others were growing redder as the blood rushed to them. Tig was breathing like he was running a marathon, huge gulps of air that made his ribcage heave.

"I let-" Tig's voice was wrecked and tight. "I couldn't- he killed my baby girl, and I was there, and I couldn't-"

Chibs let his arm fall, the belt dangling from his fist. "I'll nae hit you for that," he rasped. His hands were shaking, he noticed distantly. There were six bright red stripes across Tig's back. Chibs still couldn't quite believe he was the one who'd put them there. It still felt surreal, that Tig would even ask him for this. That he would think he deserved it.

"You gotta, Chibs." Tig sank down further, until his head rested on his folded arms. "Please."

"It felt like I buried my son yesterday. I cannae watch you do this-"

"Fucking hit me!" Tig yelled, his voice cracked and wavering.

"Christ," Chibs muttered, and swung, catching Tig on his lower back and making him hiss. Tig arched into the blow instead of away. Chibs swallowed hard, prickles washing over his skin like the opposite of a chill, flush and warm. If the circumstances were different, Tig would look good like this - and he was fooling himself. Tig did look good like this, on his knees in supplication and giving himself over to Chibs' will.

"It should've been me those fuckers killed in county, and it should be me dead in the ground." Tig's shoulders were shaking - Chibs knew what a man holding back tears sounded like.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Chibs." Tig didn't look up, didn't move, just stayed on his knees with his head bowed, waiting for the stroke to fall. And that was the crux of it. Tig would never accept forgiveness if he didn't feel like he earned it - he wouldn't take it out of brotherhood and certainly not out of pity. If Chibs didn't do this for him, he'd find some other way to punish himself for all this guilt he carried, and it might be far more dangerous if Tig went to find it on his own. Chibs couldn't let him do that - Tig didn't deserve this in the first place, but since he'd gotten it into his head that he did, Chibs would give him what he needed.

Chibs clenched his jaw, bracing himself for it even though Tig was the one who would take the blow. It was a wilder swing than Chibs intended, and the belt landed across two of the other welts. Tig jerked, a grunt forced from him. "Fuck." Chibs dropped the belt and stepped into Tig's space, running his palm over Tig's back, feeling the heat radiating from the reddened strokes.

"Don't-"

"Hush," Chibs said, lowering himself down to his knees behind Tig, the pads of his fingers tracing over the raised welts, searching for any breaks in the skin. He'd gone too far after all.

Tig squirmed under his touch, finally raising his head from his arms. The choked sound was gone from his voice when he spoke, replaced with a breathy strain that Chibs recognized all too well. "Chibs, man, you might not wanna-"

"Oh aye?" Chibs asked, as hoarse as Tig was, half-hard and breathing just as quickly.

"Jesus," Tig said - but instead of pulling away, he pressed back into the hand on his back, hissing when Chibs' palm brushed over the welts. "You getting off on this?"

"Are you?" Chibs asked. Tig huffed, shoulders stiff, and then nodded once. Chibs sucked in a breath, feeling like he was trying to draw in thick soup instead of air. He'd given Tig what he wanted, laid into him to alleviate the man's own guilt, and now it was time to set him right. "You know this doesn't end with the lash. Confession, penance, absolution."

Tig sat back on his heels, crowding into Chibs' space, their bodies inches from each other, heat bleeding into Chibs through his shirt and his cut. He looked at Chibs over his shoulder, breathing Chibs' air. "I thought you said you weren't a priest."

"No." Chibs flattened his palm over Tig's bare stomach, pressing this chest up against Tig's back. His pants did nothing to hide what this had done to him, especially not when Tig was sitting halfway in his lap with only a towel on.

Tig barked out a shocked laugh, his head dropping forward to bare the line of his neck. Chibs was struck with the urge to sink his teeth into it - he held it back. "Is this where you tell me to go and sin no more?"

"This is when I forgive you, Tigger," Chibs said, and suddenly the way he was holding Tig felt intimate and tender. He pressed his lips to Tig's neck, stroked his hand over Tig's stomach.

"I'm not worth forgiving," Tig said, the words buzzing against Chibs' lips.

"That's nae for you to decide," Chibs said, bearing him forward with his weight until Tig's chest was pressed to the bed again. He fitted his hands around Tig's sides, lowering his mouth to the red welts across his back, and dragged his tongue across the last, angriest stroke.

Tig twisted in his grip, but not like he was really trying to get away. "This isn't what I asked for."

"You telling me to stop?" Chibs scraped his beard across Tig's back, a counterpoint to the wet heat of his mouth, and felt Tig shudder under him.

"No."

"Good." Chibs yanked the towel loose, tossing it to the side. "You took the beating like you deserved it, but that shite you carry isn't for you to shoulder. I forgive you."

"Don't," Tig rasped, turning his head away.

"You need to hear it." Chibs stripped out of his cut and his shirt, fumbled with the buttons of his pants, shoving them down around his thighs. He pressed his chest to Tig's back again now that they were both bare, just to hear the sharp intake of breath it provoked.

"You gonna fuck me?" Tig asked, and there was something wary in his voice that made Chibs' chest feel hollow all over again.

"Only if you want." He caged Tig in with his arms, his weight solid atop him. Tig tipped his head forward, baring the nape of his neck again, and Chibs gave into the temptation this time. He set his teeth in the knob of Tig's spine and grinned into his skin when Tig jerked and groaned, pressing back into Chibs' hold on him.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay, I want it."

Chibs couldn't see his face, couldn't get any sense of what Tig's state of mind was like. He wrapped his hand in Tig's dark curls and pulled, gentle but firm, drawing him up from the bed and caging him in with one arm around his chest. "Tell me again," he said, with Tig's head tipped back against his collarbone.

Tig's eyes were shocking blue rings around seas of black pupil, his mouth slack and open. Chibs tightened his hold on Tig's hair without conscious thought and had the satisfaction of watching his eyelids slip half-closed. "I want it, Chibs. You gonna treat me like a fucking girl and make sure three more times or you gonna get your dick in me?"

Chibs yanked him back far enough to kiss, messy and open-mouthed - the angle was bad for anything else, but it was enough to drag his tongue over Tig's lips, to bite at his cheekbone. Tig was slack and pliant against him, giving himself over for whatever Chibs wanted from him. The thought sent his cock from interested to urgent, hard against the small of Tig's back. Chibs slid the hand around Tig's chest down between his legs, rings catching at his skin. Tig was hard too, his cock flushed red in the circle of Chibs' fist.

"Oh, fuck." Tig arched in his grip, deliberately rolling his back against Chibs' chest, putting pressure on the welts Chibs had left.

"Down," Chibs said, sliding his grip from Tig's hair to between his shoulderblades, pressing him facedown on the bed. He nudged his knee between Tig's, parting his legs. Tig turned his head to one side on the sheets, his mouth open, watching Chibs out of the corner of his eye. Chibs rubbed his hand over Tig's back and dug his fingers into one of the welts. His breath came harder at the sharp noise and the half-slurred 'fuck yes' from Tig. He rocked against Tig's arse, his cock nudging the back of his balls. "Someone's got to have something in this damn room-"

"I can take it raw, man-"

"I'll nae have you torture yourself any more than you have-"

"Jesus, Chibs." Tig flailed back with one hand and caught Chibs' wrist - the one still wrapped up with the rosary - and propped himself up on his elbow. He yanked, pulling Chibs forward until they were skin-to-skin again, and closed his mouth over the first two fingers, rings and all.

Tig's tongue rubbed over the calluses on his fingers, the ones born from shooting and the little nicks from knife-fighting. Chibs moved his other hand over Tig's cock, his knuckles dragging over the sheet pinned under them. Tig scraped his teeth over the fingers in his mouth, just below the edges of the rings, and Chibs bit at the meat of his shoulder in retaliation. The noise Tig made was muffled and appreciative and it went straight to Chibs' cock, aching fit to burst.

"In me," Tig said, letting the fingers slide from his mouth.

Chibs shoved the urge to argue with him aside - if they didn't get to this, it would only get tangled up between them when Tig got impatient and walked away. The rosary bumped against his arm as he moved, an illicit reminder of what this had started out as. Chibs pressed his slick fingers between the cheeks of Tig's arse, and it was like Tig went boneless all at once, opening up to the pressure. Chibs twisted, working in slowly, but Tig only shivered with it, his hole yielding to the intrusion.

"Tiggy, here I thought I was the only cock you let up your arse." Chibs pressed in, crooking his fingers down, holding Tig in place with his weight when the other man twisted and cursed and tried to press back into it. "Or have you been missing me bad enough you finger yourself and think about me?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Tig grunted, but he was rolling his hips into Chibs' touch like he couldn't decide which he wanted more of, the fingers inside him or the hand around his cock. "I don't have to be mooning over you to enjoy a little ass play. Nothing gay about that."

"Plenty gay about this." Chibs spread his fingers wide, loosening Tig up for his cock. He leaned back and spat on Tig's arse, rubbing it in with his thumb as he twisted and pushed and wrung a grunt out of Tig that sounded like he'd had his breath punched out.

"Don't tell me you're gonna have a crisis with your dick halfway in me." Tig was sounding more like himself already, and Chibs grinned, his scars pulling tight across his face.

"No crisis here. I'm too old for that shite." He pulled his fingers free and licked his palm wet, letting go of Tig to slick himself and line up. He leaned his weight on Tig's back, pressing him into the sheets, and waited until he heard Tig take a deep breath and let it out, the muscles relaxing. He kept his movements deliberate and gentle, screwing in with slow, patient motions of his hips, his mouth falling open on a deep, appreciative noise at the hot grip of Tig's body around his cock.

"Fuck. Just as good as I remember." Tig sounded breathless and strained. Chibs slowed even further, leaning down to seal his lips over the welts again, worrying their edges with his teeth.

"You did miss me," Chibs said into his skin, his hands tight on Tig's hips. He was barely moving, little hitching motions that made Tig twitch beneath him. "You know I'd fuck you if you asked."

"Nah man, I get plenty of pussy." Tig shoved back against him, trying to pick up the pace, and Chibs bit harder, making him swear and shudder.

"I know you're a smart man, Tigger, you can tell the difference between pussy and cock." He ground deep into Tig, circling his hips. It pressed Tig into the mattress, and he twisted his fingers in the blankets, white-knuckled.

"Yeah, no shit, pussy doesn't feel like it's trying to tear me in half - don't fucking stop." Tig gasped the last, the muscles in his back quivering under Chibs' stomach, and Chibs tightened his grip on Tig's hips, finally driving into him hard like he knew Tig wanted it.

"I'll admit I missed this. You. Can't get this rough with the girls." He slammed their hips together in emphasis, huffing for breath. They were both older than they'd been when they were in county together for the last long stretch, and it showed. If Tig was willing to take this slow, Chibs could draw it out forever - but Tig wanted hard, bruising, fingerprints on his hips to complement the stripes on his back. Chibs wasn't going to last long with that kind of stimulation - not when it had been so long since they'd done it last, and not when Tig was under him like this, giving himself up for the taking.

"Maybe we should fuck more often then, you fucking girl. Wouldn't want you to pine for me." That was the Tig that Chibs knew - abrasive and vulgar and unselfconscious.

"Maybe." Chibs let his eyes close and his mouth map the back of Tig's shoulders, imagining he could taste where the ink from his reaper sat under the skin. Tig was pinned immobile under him, bracing himself against the crashing force of Chibs' hips with the grip he had on the blankets, barely voiced grunts spilling from his slack, wet mouth. 

Chibs sat back, leaning his weight on the hand in between Tig's shoulders again, his palm pressing hard against the marks from his belt. Tig tensed around him, muscles seizing, an unintelligible string of noise coming from him. He twitched and jerked and Chibs groaned when he tightened down, laying his weight down on Tig again and grinding deep into him, riding out the squeeze around his cock. He shoved his hand under Tig and pushed his fingers through the sticky mess on Tig's stomach and the sheets. "Fuck, Tig."

"C'mon, man, give it up," Tig rasped, and that was it. Chibs panted against the skin of Tig's shoulder and let go, driving deep into Tig and coming in hot pulses, the orgasm lighting up the nerves all down his spine.

They both lay still, catching their breath, Chibs' mouth still open against one of the welts crossing Tig's skin. He dragged his tongue over it and Tig cursed, wiggling forward as much as he could until Chibs slipped free and they both winced.

"Ah, gross. You could've worn a rubber." Tig elbowed him, and Chibs sat up, fishing in his jeans for the pack in his pocket.

"I wasn't the one saying he could take it raw," he said, knocking two cigarettes out of the pack and handing one to Tig.

Tig rolled over, the mess smeared across his stomach glistening wetly. He looked almost as good like this as he looked at Chibs' feet. Tig caught him staring as he lit up and tossed the lighter back at Chibs' face. "Don't get any ideas."

Chibs caught the lighter one-handed, jerking his pants up from where they were still tangled around his thighs. "Sit up." He scooted up onto the bed, pulling Tig upright by his shoulder and moving around behind him. "Let me look."

"I'm fine," Tig said, but he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, puffing on the cigarette while Chibs traced careful fingers over each one of the welts.

"These'll bruise." Chibs ran the pads of his fingers over the welt that crossed the others. "Especially this one."

"That was kind of the point."

Chibs tucked the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and moved closer, until his clothed thighs were bracketing Tig's hips and he could hook his chin over Tig's shoulder. "I meant it, what I told you. You're forgiven - you can't keep holding this kind of thing down until it kills you."

Tig eyed him sideways like he was tempted to shrug Chibs off him, but he let Chibs wrap an arm around his waist and leaned back into the solid weight of Chibs' chest. "I've been such a fuck-up lately, man."

"No, you've been trying to hold the club together while the table's fracturing - same as we've all been doing. Nobody will blame you for loyalty, Tigger."

Tig snorted, a cloud of smoke puffing out of his nostrils, and took another long drag. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you're getting emotional in your old age."

Chibs huffed in return and smacked a wet kiss on Tig's cheek, grinning when Tig made a face at him. "We love you, brother." He inhaled a lungful of smoke before adding, "If you get this bad again, you come find me."

Tig's back went tense. He nodded slowly, staring at the far wall instead of looking at Chibs. "Yeah. I might take you up on that."

"You'd better. I need you with your head on straight, aye?" Chibs jostled him with the arm wrapped around his waist. "Feeling any better?"

It took even longer for Tig to answer that, but Chibs gave him the time, finishing his smoke still wrapped around Tig like a blanket. Finally, he felt Tig relax against him before he shoved Chibs' arm away and stood up. "Yeah. I guess so."

Chibs watched him pick the towel up off the floor and wipe the mess off himself. He looked better, a little bit more relaxed, not hunched in on himself and definitely not avoiding Chibs' eyes like he had something to be ashamed of. Chibs made the sign of the cross with the end of his cigarette. "Then go and sin no more - as long as you're counting sin by SAMCRO bylaws. We'd be in a bit of a mess otherwise."

That made Tig grin, wide and genuine and without the haunted shadows that had been there the night before. "You're a terrible Catholic, Chibby."

"Aye, but I'm all we've got."

Tig's grin faded into a little half-smile as he yanked up his pants and picked his cut up off the floor, thumb brushing over the place on the right side that had, until recently, said Sergeant at Arms. "The flash suits you," Tig said finally, shrugging into his cut shirtless since his shirt was still wet at the bottom of the shower. "Hope you keep it."

"As long as I can, brother," Chibs said, waving him off. "Go on with you. The rest of them will want to know how you're doing."

For a second Tig looked like facing the rest of the club was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, but he rolled his neck on his shoulders and shrugged, settling his cut into place. Chibs figured it had to sting, rubbing up against the welts - and he'd feel it every time a brother clapped him on the back. "Get some sleep, man. I know you were up too late watching me." Tig left without waiting for him to reply, pulling the door firmly shut after him.

Chibs finished off his cigarette and stubbed it out, thumb worrying over the beads of the rosary still wound around his wrist. In the light of day, it was easier to clasp his hands and bow his head. His tongue still hesitated on the words, grief trying to climb up his throat and choke out his voice, but he swallowed it down and forced the prayer out, softly murmuring benediction for the Son he'd lost, the leader he loved, and the brother he needed to save.


End file.
